


The Conjurer and His Secrets

by eldritcher



Series: The Heralds of Dusk [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:45:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Must there be secrets always?” I had asked him once.</p><p>He had met my petulant gaze with strange reluctance before murmuring, “Indeed, there must be. What is a conjurer without his secrets?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conjurer and His Secrets

Menelwen – Maglor’s daughter.  
Carnilótë – Maglor’s wife.  
Laurefindë – Glorfindel.

 

The Conjurer And His Secrets

 

The Fourth Age

Valinor

 

“Macalaurë.” 

It was Carnilótë. I set down my quill and waved her into the seat across me, wondering what errand had brought her to seek me. My oath of silence and the murky past had ensured that we had not corresponded since my arrival in my uncle’s house. She did not live here. She lived with Eönwë and my mother in Valmar.

“Our daughter has been spending the greater part of her time with you,” she remarked, sitting next to me and pulling to her the scraps of parchment which I had been scribbling upon. 

The gesture reminded me of our days as husband and wife in the days following my uncle’s coronation. She had been loyal and strong in mind. I had never done right by her, first marrying her in order to soothe my wounded pride after my brother’s rejection and later abandoning her whenever my brother had summoned me and finally, leaving her to raise our daughter all by herself while I fought for our oath.

“Let bygones be bygones,” she said gently, reading my thoughts from my face as she always had uncannily done. 

Yet it was not easy to forgive myself for the many deceptions I had committed in our martial union. I had always prided myself on honouring my pledges. But love had turned me faithless in marriage. 

“Menelwen awaits Artanis’s arrival with deep anticipation for with your cousin shall come Laurefindë.”

I feared what would ensue in their reunion. I knew what almost nobody remembered from the Time of the Trees. Laurefindë was not free to give his heart to my child. He had loved another passionately in his youth, heeding neither words of wisdom from our elders nor the pang of his conscience. I was no stranger to the thralldom of forbidden passion. To break away from such a bond was nigh impossible. Could Laurefindë achieve that? He had conquered one of the Valaruca. But could he conquer his heart’s will? Did he wish to?

My child’s eyes would often flicker to the east wistfully whenever she walked on the terrace with me. Celebrían had told me that Menelwen sailed before she had tired of life in Middle Earth. Perhaps my daughter regretted that decision now. Her husband bided with Celebrían’s Sindarin relatives to the south. I had often wondered about the stark absence of passion in their relationship. I would have asked Celebrían, but I did not wish to pry into my daughter’s life at this stage when I had never been there for her in the times she had needed a guardian. 

“Artanis, Círdan and Ereinion did what they could for our children,” Carnilótë said reassuringly. 

I raised my eyebrows at the statement. Pulling out a fresh parchment, I scribbled on it, “Artanis has never been renowned for childcare.”

“Perhaps,” Carnilótë chuckled. “But then neither were you. Yet you took in Elros and Elrond.”

“I did what I could,” I wrote.

“And she did the same,” Carnilótë said solemnly. “Never underestimate the love she bears you, Macalaurë. Her life would have been easier had she loved you less.”

“I would not be here if I did not love her.” I paused my scribbling and glared at her before continuing. “I would have ended my life had I not sworn to Arafinwë that I would wait till Artanis no longer had need of me.”

A strange emotion flashed in Carnilótë’s eyes and she whispered, “He was fortunate to have your heart, Macalaurë. Artanis and I envied him that.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. It would always lead to this; her silent regret at having loved one who could never reciprocate. Having known white fire, would I ever settle for less? No, I had always known it from the first stricken moment in which I had realised the true north of my heart. I would be broken by the same cause that had lent me strength in the face of my greatest struggles. 

“I did not mean to unsettle you,” Carnilótë said brokenly. “I have had time enough to reflect upon the past and our choices. I have accepted the truth for what it is. You cannot give me anything other than companionship. That I would have of you, Macalaurë, if you will allow me.”

I opened my eyes and looked miserably upon her silhouetted profile. She had turned away from me, flushed with embarrassment at the words that she had spoken. For the umpteenth time, I cursed myself for having ever agreed to a political marriage, though crucial and inevitable it had seemed then.

“I shall go now,” she spoke hastily. “I am sorry if I incommoded you.”

I grabbed her wrist and rose to my feet. She sobbed and turned to face me, falling into my arms in her despair. I held her as she cried; my wretched heart mourning for making her the victim of our family intrigues. She had never complained about my choices. She had not demanded a single vow from me. She had been my strength when I had been estranged from my brother, when I had fled my lands pursued by the dragon’s wrath, when I had lost my younger brothers in the massacre at Doriath, and finally when I had waved farewell to my dearest foster-sons. What had I given her in return? Merely tears to shed and a lonely bed. 

“Oh, Macalaurë!” She looked up, her brown eyes pleading for understanding. “I loved you from the night of our marriage. Why did I do it, Macalaurë? What grievous sin did I commit that fate has condemned me to love one I never can have?”

I kissed her brow and held her to me, wishing desperately that I could give voice to the penitence and regret that consumed me. Yet that avenue was forbidden to me by the oath I had sworn to Manwë. 

“I meant what I said,” she whispered to my chest. “I would rather have the least part of you than none at all.”

I winced, thinking of my own words spoken in the gardens of this very mansion so long ago. Artanis and I had lain upon the grass, exhausted by our carnal frolicking. Young, naïve and blessed with adolescent enthusiasm, we had worn out each other with our doings. And then she had discerned my secret in an unguarded moment. She had not condemned me, instead offering understanding and a kind ear. 

I had then said that I would have the chaste affection of my brother rather than his utter loathing if he learnt of my taint. Now Carnilótë’s words were echoing my youthful speech. I buried my face in her hair and wondered if things would always happen in circles. Pity filled me and I gently lowered my lips to the soft, quivering ones of my companion. 

 

 

The First Age

Mithlond.

 

“Stay the night with me,” I begged her as she reluctantly disentangled her limbs from mine. “It is near dawn.”

She smiled and said quietly, “I wish I could, Macalaurë. But our time has come to an end.”

The depth of emotion in her brown eyes had unsettled me terribly and I pretended not notice that, instead playing with the sweat-dampened tendrils of her hair. Gently, she pushed away my hand and rose to her feet. She did not turn back and for that I was glad. When the door had slid closed after her, I could only bury my face in my hands and rue my very existence that had caused two women I loved the most such anguish. 

Dark were my musings and I found no rest. I knew what I would lose soon. Had I expected Carnilótë to keep me sane after I had lost my brother as she had done thus far? I cursed. I had used her selfishly and I still wanted her to be there after the inevitable had happened. The inevitable…I leapt to my feet and pulled on a light robe before rushing to my brother’s chambers.

With my hand on the handle of the door, I paused. I could hear voices, Círdan and my brother. Jealousy and possessiveness, always lurking within me to be stoked to greatness, now reared their ugly heads and I flung open the door. 

My brother looked up with mild bewilderment. He was seated at his desk, poring over a map. Standing behind him, looking over his shoulder was the accursed mariner. 

“I had better take my leave, Lord Maedhros,” Círdan spoke, as politely as ever.

My brother’s eyes took in my disheveled form and he nodded absently to Círdan who promptly left the chamber without even bothering to greet me.

“What was he doing here?” I demanded, striding to my brother’s side and scowling at the large map of the hinterlands that he had been studying.

“No more and no less than what you saw, Macalaurë.” 

My brother’s voice held suppressed amusement and his eyes sparkled as polished pewter in the light of the fire. 

“I don’t like the way he looks at you,” I muttered, wondering if every person my brother met had to be enthralled by his charm. 

His eyebrows jerked up in shock before he recovered his composure and asked equably, “How does he look at me, Macalaurë? I have never noticed anything untoward.”

A long finger came to twirl itself about a single strand of brown hair that had snagged in my robe; my wife’s hair. I flinched and looked away, waiting for the words of censure and anger that would pass his lips. 

He rose to his feet and pushed back the chair. The firelight played over the sculpted visage, stirring my heart to passion and longing as had happened all my life. His eyes met mine, their assessment cool and thoughtful. He had known of my activities and yet he had not uttered a word of scorn. I wondered, not for the first time, if he would have succumbed to our relationship had I not craved it so. He did not grudge the time I spent with my wife and that disturbed me terribly. 

“I am-”, I began softly, willing myself not to shy away from admitting my congress with Carnilótë.

“I am not your keeper, Macalaurë,” he said swiftly, his eyes blazing with the white fire that had proved my doom. “Tell me nothing.”

With a scornful look, he turned away, concentrating upon arranging the correspondence on his desk. His words burned my dark heart further and I gripped his wrist, wanting him to rant, to chide, to complain, to threaten; anything but this uncaring mien. His hand stilled and my fingers registered the increase of his pulse. It was traitorous on my part, knowing well as I did that force would vanquish his defiance where words could not. 

“It is unfair to use my weakness against me, brother,” he said in a low voice.

“Have you ever known love so deep that it turns you possessive and jealous beyond reason’s bounds?”I demanded, not relaxing my grip on his wrist. 

He frowned in incomprehension at what had caused me to speak those words and it merely spurred my anger higher. I turned him about roughly and pulled him to me. His lips parted hastily when I demanded entry with mine and he clung to me as I deepened the kiss.

“Macalaurë!” he hissed as I released his lips before I asphyxiated us both. 

I did not heed him, instead choosing to grip his waist so hard that his gasp came as no surprise. When a pained moan left his lips following my attentions to his throat, tenderness and possessiveness again fought within my heart. The nobler emotion won and I stepped away, quailing at what I had wrought. 

He stood blinking dazedly in the firelight, his eyes holding wary confusion as they regarded my panting form. 

“I am sorry!” I whispered, stricken by the pain I had caused him. 

He offered his wrist to me silently and I winced when I saw the imprint of my grip upon the fair skin.

“Russandol,” I began, horrified, my fingers hovering over the bruises they had created. “I swear that it shall not happen again.”

“It is a trifle,” he said reassuringly. “Yes, Macalaurë, to answer your question, my regard for you shall always measure beyond the pale of reason.”

Mortified and yet angry, I asked despairingly, “Why then have you not forbidden me from my wife’s company?”

He held my gaze with difficulty and a swallow graced his throat as he said quietly, “You are your own person, Macalaurë. I cannot command your regard.”

Anger reigned once again. Had he been as blind as not to see that I had never been my own person, that I had been nothing more than a thrall to his love all my life and would remain one beyond death? How detachedly had he watched me seek comfort in my wife’s arms all the time while he despaired within! 

“You are a fool!” I shouted, wanting to do nothing more than to shake some sense into his stubborn head. 

He looked mildly disgruntled by my declaration before he rallied enough to remark jocularly, “Perhaps I am, my dearest Macalaurë. But I remain your fool.”

The earnestness shining within those eyes that had been my beacons all my life undid my rein on composure and I rushed to embrace him, hoarsely whispering non-sequitors that included his name and a thousand broken phrases which but scratched the barest surface of my regard for him. He held me as I broke in his arms finally, my turmoil rapidly bringing my mind to disorientation. 

“I will not survive our parting,” I confessed plainly as his lips graced my brow. 

His grip on my shoulder tightened and he said in a haunted voice, “You shall, Macalaurë. I swear to you that what follows shall be worth it. Life has much to offer you yet.”

“Damn my life!” I cursed and gripped the front of his robes. “What is it without you, you fool?”

He did not reply though his eyes closed for a moment, hiding the emotions that must have been playing in their grey depths. I kissed him, and this time I ran my hands down his spine in long, soothing strokes. He relaxed into me and gently led me to the bed without breaking contact. I pushed him down upon the rich coverlet and applied my fingers to the laces of his robes. His eyes remained coolly fixed on mine while I divested him of his garments. I kissed him once again, smiling as he arched to feel the richness of my robe against his bare skin. 

“Would you mind terribly if I wished to try something different this night?” he asked softly as I relearned the familiar torso with my fingers and lips.

“Anything you wish, as long as you remain unclad and displayed in the firelight,” I remarked, laughing when my words earned me a scandalised glare. 

He muttered something about unrestrained libertinism and gently pushed me off before kneeling up to grope atop the large mantel beside the bed. Curious, I sat back and waited impatiently, wishing nothing more than to drown in physical sensations once again. I did not want to think of the future.

When he turned back to face me, his eyes openly displaying the vulnerability that was usually hidden underneath calm limpidness, my heart constricted and I knew that I would follow him into death. 

“Father made them.” 

He turned an intriguing shade of crimson before dropping a pair of something cool into my hands. Frowning, I looked down at them and gasped. Elegant and simple, as were all of our father’s creations; they shone innocently in the firelight, with a splendour that was all their own. 

“You will remember that I was to be engaged to Ingwë's granddaughter following the feast,” my brother said hesitantly, his voice breaking down with nervousness and fear. 

I remained staring at them. The light of the Trees and that of the stars were contained in their substance. I sighed.

“Say something, please.”

The firelight lent a golden hue to his grey eyes, reminding me of the glorious hue of colours that heralded the mingling of the lights long ago in our age of bliss. Never before had he seemed as terrified and yet brave as he was now. 

Lore would remember his feyness upon the battlefields, our people would remember him as the king who never was and our family would remember him as the one who suffered the most for our cause. 

But I would remember him as he was now, courageous in the face of fear and refusing to relinquish hope in the face of the inevitable.

“My dearest brother,” I whispered finally. 

“Thank you.”

He covered his face with his hand and sighed saying, “It was a wretched wait, Macalaurë. I hope never to know the pain of anticipation like this again.”

“As you have seen, I am disastrously possessive and would probably add fratricide to the list of my crimes should you dare approach another with these.”

He made a queer noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob, and extended his hand to me saying, “I have never been as grateful to Moringotto as I am now. He spared my left hand, after all.” 

I slid the exquisite creation of our father onto his slender ring finger and then brought it to my lips for a chaste kiss of fealty.

“You will live for me, Macalaurë,” he said commandingly. 

“Until I no longer can,” I swore. His features relaxed and a wan smile came to grace his lips in relief. 

“And I,” he slipped on the thin circlet onto my ring finger, “I swear that you will not regret your promise.”

 

 

The Fourth Age, 

Valinor

 

“Macalaurë.”

Carnilótë’s whisper drew me back to the present and I found myself embracing her, my lips hovering above hers in indecision. I jumped as though scalded and withdrew from the embrace hastily. 

“There is nothing left, my lady,” I whispered, bringing my left hand to her uneasy gaze. She flinched on seeing my father’s craftsmanship adorning the finger upon which once had rested her ring. “He claimed all that I was, and I ceded willingly.”

“I cannot save you from the doom then!” she said wearily. “I had never the least chance of doing so, had I?”

No, she had not had even the least chance. I closed my eyes and remembered the inferno of passion and despair that we had been entangled in that night. 

 

 

The First Age

Mithlond.

 

Whispers of rapture had fled his lips at my touch. My questing fingers met with the utter surrender of his strength and will. He closed his eyes as I mapped his frame with my hands. 

“Look at me,” I commanded. 

And he complied. For once, those grey pools withheld nothing and I was conquered entirely by the depth of sincerity reflected in them. I knew then that I would never touch him intimately again. For him to abandon the restraint that had ever imprisoned his emotions to reveal his soul’s naked truth, he must have known that it was the end.

“Make it worth everything, Macalaurë,” he said, hushed.

“So it shall be.” 

I kissed his brow sealing my oath. His hand shifted from my shoulder to my neck and to my face before it directed itself to my chest, and he sighed upon feeling the frantic beat of my heart under my ribcage. 

Bending to press my lips to the faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes, I felt his trembling beneath my body. My father’s fire surged within me and I wanted nothing more than to hunt down those fiends that had destroyed him thus and throw their carcasses to the wolves. Neither Findekáno nor I had been able to bring the least recovery to my brother’s shattered soul.

“Tell me,” I begged him, knowing that if he did not answer me then, he would never do so again. “Please, I must know.”

And his arching frame stilled beneath mine. When I lifted my head and met his gaze, I wished that I had not done so, for within those eyes remained the untouched, unhealed, jagged shadow of the mountain upon which he had lost pride and hope. 

I understood finally what Findekáno had meant by his cryptic explanation of their relationship. 

“Maitimo and I are bound by shame and shadow, cousin,” Findekáno had said before we had left for the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. “You cannot understand the chalice that unites us, and I wish to Eru that you never have to.”

“Do you wish to know?” My brother’s clipped tones bespoke of warning and disapproval.

I saw the terror in his eyes, I flinched at the sudden cold that had seized his body, and I felt the rapid thudding of the heart under my fingers. Swallowing, I made my decision. Bringing the ring adorning his finger to my lips, I held his gaze and nodded quietly.

It is etched deep within my core, the stricken despair that shadowed his visage even as the flame of courage remained unsubdued in his gaze. He began hesitantly, taking heed as to shape his words in the blandest manner as had been his wont on negotiating tables. But when I gasped in horror and buried my face in his neck, his narrative faltered and raw emotion seeped in. 

“It is over, Macalaurë, and cannot haunt me but in dreams,” he whispered.

I shook my head and reined in my composure, concentrating on the pleasure that I could give him. He brought his legs to twine about my torso, slowly raising them to my shoulders. I tried to indicate that it would be difficult, but the steely glint within his eyes silenced my admonishments. A luxuriously languorous interlude of passion followed and we knew only the sound of our voices intermingled in bliss and the rising heat of entwined bodies. He pinnacled first and threw his head back with a restrained sound of satisfaction while I followed quietly. 

We had never been loud in intimacy, he and I. Later I would wonder if it had been the nature of our relationship that had cast the shroud of silence over our couplings. Perhaps it had been our unvoiced, mutual need to hold in treasured privacy what little we had to rejoice in and live for. 

With effort, I disengaged his legs from their perch and chided him half-heartedly as he winced in pain. His eyes remained closed, as they usually were in the aftermath of intimacy. But a wan smile quirked his lips and I responded with a grudging one of my own. It was hard for me to admonish him even when we were in the presence of others. How then would I stay angry with him when he was lying exhausted, with tendrils of his crimson mane plastered to his damp forehead and his hand blindly seeking out my own?

I sighed and settled myself beside him, drawing the coverlet over us as I did so. Eyes still closed, he tentatively turned to my side so that his face was buried in my shoulder. I ran my fingers through his hair and down his spine, smiling as a feline purr escaped him. That was followed by inaudible words voiced against my skin.

“My hearing has been permanently impaired by Elros’s shouting, Russandol,” I remarked. “I would be deeply obliged if you would repeat your words.”

He snorted, but remained silent for a while, seemingly content to use me as a headrest. Then, when I had near despaired of hearing those words repeated again, he stirred and voiced them quietly.

“It was the only way in which I had not been forced to give myself, Macalaurë. It was but right that I yield thusly to you. Now I can be at peace knowing that I was able to give you something that only you have had of me.”

I was grateful that he did not look up at me then. Silently, I let the tears fall onto his hair. He did not speak again, instead choosing to make himself more comfortable upon my body. 

“Would you have nothing of me in return then?” I demanded hoarsely.

“Live, Macalaurë, I would have you live until the sun fails to rise in the east.”

 

The Fourth Age

Valinor

 

“Prince Canafinwë .”

I sighed and turned to face the high, cold voice of the doomsman of the Valar. The sarcastic inner voice within my mind remarked that he had been chasing me for all my life, for I remained the only son of my father who had escaped his clutches. 

“Mandos.” 

“It draws nearer, the end.” He gazed east thoughtfully, his cold eyes glinting in silent anticipation. “She shall die and fail; your cousin. But you, you will live.”

“Perhaps you have tired of my stubbornness and have no wish to add my soul to your collection?” I queried sardonically.

Compassion seemed strange on his features. But compassion, it indeed was. When he spoke, he seemed hesitant.

“You did not know of your blasphemous brother’s last act in life?”

“He lives, in my heart.” 

I did not allow fear and despair to creep into my voice. My mother had told me that they all lived in our hearts. I was sane because of that illogical, blind belief.

“We did not know until Nienna discerned it. Why do you think that Manwë spared you when you were first brought before us? It was not because of Celebrían’s plea. He could not have harmed you anyway.”

“Then?” 

I frowned. Mandos was not my favourite conversationalist, never had been. But instinct bade me to listen. 

“It was because of the plea of a woman whom Manwë loves,” Mandos said flatly, looking in the direction of Taniquetil. “A woman who had foolishly sworn to keep you safe in return for the inevitable. Your brother was fabled for his cunning. Yet it was scarce hours before his death that he tricked us with his finest ploy.”

“Varda!” I exclaimed in rising comprehension.

Mandos nodded grimly. I stood benumbed, as flashes of the past clamoured in my mind’s eye. My brother had struck a deal with Varda to keep me alive. 

Sauron’s agents had hunted me, slavers had tried to capture me and even those of my own kindred had tried to bring me to judgement after the War of Wrath. Yet I had remained safe for centuries, despite my loneliness and ignorance. Varda had honoured her promise to my brother. The ship bearing me west had not been sunken. Manwë’s storm had not killed me. Long, lonely years upon the white shores before the halls of Mandos had not broken me. And when Celebrían had found me, lifeprice had been paid in the coin of an unborn child to keep me alive. I shuddered and looked away from Mandos’s cold regard.

“Live for me,” my brother had said. He had ensured that I would. 

I inhaled sharply and gazed upon the cold fires of Varda’s stars. There had been many secrets and lies in the relationship between my brother and I. I would not learn the truth even if I spent an eternity attempting to do so. He had never dropped his impenetrable shield of pretense till the end. But he had loved me as desperately as I loved him. He had loved me enough to offer his death as barter for my life, his shame as barter for my unsoiled pride and his slavery for my freedom. 

“Must there be secrets always?” I had asked him once.

He had met my petulant gaze with strange reluctance before murmuring, “Indeed, there must be. What is a conjurer without his secrets?”

He would never return. But his secrets lingered, and his schemes unfolded all about me as the end neared. Many would die and these lands would be stained by blood again. Yet I would remain unharmed, for he had willed it so. And I would live, for he had willed it so.


End file.
